


Finding Eden

by Rainwater_Apothecary



Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Dungeons & Dragons 5th Edition, Friends to Lovers, M/M, This was going to happen at some point i just gave in a couple days ago
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-10
Updated: 2017-06-10
Packaged: 2018-11-12 12:27:11
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,492
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11161818
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rainwater_Apothecary/pseuds/Rainwater_Apothecary
Summary: We seem to have lost an elf and found a relationship. Hm.





	Finding Eden

Jean Kirschtein still couldn’t believe this mess his friends had gotten him into. 

Not the DND games that took place in an actual basement while they were all college students. That part he’d mostly gotten over.

No, this time it was personal. 

“Come on Eren, I swear to god.” He whined, toying with the small plastic miniature he’d been using. 

“Cast something, if you can!” Eren crowed, his bright eyes flashing in the dim light. Armin sighed. 

“Jean, I can give you advantage if you want it…” Jean snorted. Don’t patronize him. 

“Guiding light.” His best friend sighed, making a pushing motion towards Jean’s side of the table. Marco rolled his eyes over his coke can at Jean’s dark grin. 

“Come on baby!” He shouted, the d20 rattling in his fingers with all the promise of greatness. He rolled a 5. “Fuck.” 

The table exploded into laughter as the blond wilted. 

“Jean’s status is now ‘Charmed’.” Armin makes a note in his white pad as Jean groans once again. 

“Jean Jean Jean….” Marco shook his head. The dice just weren’t with his party member that night. Eren was already bent over their side of the table with his sister while they plotted the best way to embarrass Jean’s poor mermaid wizard.   
*  
 _‘It’s a Triton, I believe.’ Jean had placed a finger in the lone players handbook the group shared._

_‘Furry.’ Sasha’s cry of laughter had echoed like a snap over the musty basement grounds. Jean, as an art student, could only look at his condemning friend. Marco turned slightly pink and cleared his throat._

_“They’re technically scalies, I’ll have you know, Mister Bodt.”_

_“Oh my god.” The social worker laughed and shook his head. What the hell were they getting themselves into, inviting Jean to their weekly game nights?_

_++_

_“You people actually play dungeons and dragons.” Eren had bit his lip while looking over at the nervous Armin on Jean’s other side._

_“Yes, and?” Jean had blinked at Mikasa. Well, what the hell. Why not?_

_++_

_“ET TU BODT” He’d shrieked when his roommate had shuffled down the treacherous stone steps with a plastic bag full of snacks in one hand. Marco paled._

_“JEAN?! HOW DID THEY-“ Sasha swiped the bag of candy from the stunned student before graciously rooting through it and passing out favorites._

_“Promised to beat his ass.” Eren had gurgled around a pixie stick. The freckled boy rolled his eyes. Of course._

_+_

_“Oh my god you people have dice and fucking everything. This is great.” Connie cackled before pulling out his trump card._

_“We have minis too.”_

_“Jesus.”_

And so he had fallen in with his shadow group of friends. The friends he thought he knew by day who were actually giant freaking nerds come Wednesday evenings. 

Eventually the mock-horror wore off and Jean’s wizard slid into Armin’s story nicely alongside his friends’ clerics and human-sized crows. (Connie. Made sense at the time.) 

 

“Oh fuck. Ooooohhhh fuck fuck fuck.” Armin’s innocent façade raised its eyebrows. 

“What is it, Jean? What’s wrong?” 

“Fucking bugbear the size of Eren’s ego is what the fuck’s wrong you sicko.” Armin giggled into his hand. Roll initiative, he says. You can do it, he says. Thank fuck for clerics, they say. 

“Oh my god guys I am not wasting spell slots on your asses when you could just actually fight.” 

“I’m trying here!” Jean motioned to the graph paper in front of them. 

“Oh! It hits! Jean take 6 damage.” Jean and Marco both narrow their eyes at their jovial dungeon master. Armin’s cheeks dimple. 

If Eren wasn’t so gay for his best friend he’d be furious. Jean could actually use his fury tonight, come on man.

“Oh. Uh. I change into a bigger bugbear.” 

“Fucking really, Eren.” 

“Roll for it.” 

“12!” 

Armin sighs as Eren’s dragonborn druid transforms into the most Extra move possible. Of course. 

“Give him twice damage, Marco! Come on!” Sasha bounces against her chair. Jean spares a grin for his haggard cleric player. If you knew Marco even slightly you’d immediately slot his ass into cleric. He was now paying for this. 

++  
 _  
“Oh fuck me. Where have you even been keeping those?” Marco’s dice clanked lightly together in their bag._

_“Um. Around.” This admission is revealed with a nervous rub on his nose._

_“MHm. Okay. So in the closet then?” They never used the closet, it had become the hording space over their semester together. Marco flushed._

_“No. Well. Sometimes. Mostly I keep them in my desk though. Next to the tarot cards.”_

_“You’re joking.” Marco shrugged in that way he had where Jean knew he would never find out for certain. Dammit._

++   
“Well…If Jean’s the only one with the ability to breathe underwater.” 

“Without using a spell slot.” 

“Without using a spell slot.” Eren agreed, shaking his dice in one hand while he thinks. “Then I charm him to free Marco!” 

“And how would that work, Eren?” Armin laces his fingers together and rests his elbows on the table. A bowl of cheese puffs (of course) move about an inch with his arm. 

“Uh.” Eren’s eyes widen. It was good in theory. 

“Compel him to slip underwater and into Eden’s cell.” Mikasa confided, slipping some of her dark hair back behind one ear. 

It had been Armin’s idea to name all their characters after Biblical things. Jean had just shook his head and laughed at the utter nerdness of it all. 

He then named his edgelord fish person ‘Cain’. 

“Able charms Cain into slipping into the water to save Eden!” Was there really any doubt as to what Eren and Jean would name their characters? 

“Guys, I can figure this out for myself, you know.” Marco’s finger rubs his nose once again. 

“Well…roll for it in any case.” 

“NAT 20.” 

“SHIT.” 

“Well damn.” 

Armin shakes his head. “With that not only does Jean slip past undetected but he kisses Eden straight on the mouth.” 

“Can’t say no to that hot elven booty.” Connie cackles as Sasha hides her laughter behind her hands. 

“Well if we must.” Marco had long since giving a crap about what his friends would put him through during their sessions. What’s a little lip action between friends? 

“Cain, being fucking _amazing_ and slick and shit, slips past all the goddamned guards and majestically eases his buff self clean through those goddamned bars and-“ 

“Eden is surprised to be honest. He hasn’t seen a triton in its full glory before.” 

“BE GAY COME ON.” Jean and Marco snigger at Eren’s adult ‘spin the bottle’ taunt. 

“So my full fucking glory is all up in that cell and I’m like, ‘Come on handsome let’s bust outta’ here.” 

“Be still my beautiful beating heart.” 

“Then, in the shadows, Eden’s wide golden eyes meet the blue-tinted skin of his savior and he cannot stop the flutter that sets off first his rightmost heart that then trickles into the other half of his vascular system.” 

“Come on Armin, ‘vascular system’ is _not_ pillow talk.” 

“Hey you don’t know what turns elves on!” Jean defends, in a sentence he never believed would ever pass his lips. 

“ _I_ don’t even know what turns elves on anymore and I _am_ one!” Marco cackles. 

“Anymore? That means you knew at one point!” Marco’s laughter bursts from his lips like a tea kettle. 

“Anyway, I fucking _saunter-_ “ 

“Ooh, saunter. Good word.” Jean winks at Sasha before continuing his charmed seduction of his best friend’s religious…high elf…thing? DND, man. DND. 

“Right? Fucking saunter all up in that.” He motions like he’s rubbing Marco down with oil from across the table. Marco only answers with an ‘oh my god’ through shaking shoulders and a laughter-tinted red face. “And then I, Cain, sees it. His beautiful fucking elf lips. Describe his lips for me, my dude.”

“This is so ridiculous! Um, okay they’re pale and kind of thin? Waif like.” He nods at Sasha’s approving noise over his vocabulary. “His hair is all dingy and gross from being in the dungeon for days, right? So it kind of hangs over his face.” His long fingers illustrate. 

“Cascading down over his beautiful cheekbones.” Jean supplies. 

“Of course. And he just…looks? Up at Cain as his cold shadow falls across his already shivering form.” 

“Aww!” Sasha covers her mouth in sympathy over the shivering cleric all alone in a cell. 

“Cain just fuckin. Kneels in front of Eden and _brushes_ the gross hair out of his face so he can- get this guys- so he can see into the fucking _breath-taking_ eyes of his _beloved_.”

“OOOOOOOOOHHHHHHHHH” Jean basks in the applause of his friends. He then catches the way one corner of his roommate’s lip twitches. Uh oh. 

“You forget who took a creative writing class last semester.” Oh shit. Marco takes in a breath before letting his grin take over his entire face, freckles alighting in the sparkles dancing in his eyes. “Eden’s shaking- No. _Tremoring_ fingers search for Cain’s face through the darkness. His dark vision must be lying to him. How on earth could this buff man possibly have found him? Climbing straight out of his fevered, lonely nightmares that longed for escape, for company?” Hoo boy. “But…’Cain?’” Marco’s face crumpled in a lighter version of what his character must have been doing. Jean’s pale hand found itself covered by the warmth of his friend’s as they got into the roles. 

“’Yes my love?’ he breathes.” 

 

“’Is it…Is it really you? I’ve been alone for so long…’” Marco’s other hand comes to cover the lower part of his face, as if to cover for tears. Oh, he’s good. But Jean’s better. Probably. 

“’Eden…’” Jean’s chair moves back from the table in a jerking movement that threatens to break the mood. “Wait, hang on.” His friends’ lips trembling with concealed laughter, Jean ‘I must one-up literally everyone and everything’ Kirschtein circled around behind Armin. 

Then he fucking kneeled. 

Marco’s face caught fire as his shorter roomie took a knee at his side, catching the hand he’d been holding onto and bringing it to his lips.

With his friend giggling into his knuckles, Marco swallowed his unattractive cackles and desperately tried to stay in character. 

“’Oh Cain, my love. It _is_ you.’” He slid to the floor as well, bringing Jean’s hand to his cheek and leaning into it. They deserved a fucking Oscar for this one. “’But if you’re here then what about the others? Oh no! Have they been captured?’” 

Chairs clattering from the table so their friends can keep an eye on the action barely masks how long the blink is that Cain shares with his captive campaign mate. Or maybe that Jean shares with the boy leaning into his hand. 

“’How do you think they sent me to find you? Able knew you were down here somewhere.’”   
Marco yanked his hands back from Jean in a surprising motion. 

“’Oh. You…you were compelled. I see.’” 

_“OH SHIT WHAT NOW.”_

_“THIS IS SOME FUCKING DAYS OF OUR LIVES SHIT”_

_“SHIIIIIIIITTTTT”_

_“GET IT GET IT GET IT EDEN.”_

Marco snorts in answer to their audience before Jean’s face falls. Hesitant fingers come back up to trace along the taller man’s cheekbone. 

“Able is the only one I’m magically charmed by, Eden. If you will not have me then…” He shrugs. 

_“SSSSSSNAP”_

Eden’s hands fly back up to his mouth in the motion to keep back tears as his savior looks mournfully up at him through blue green dreadlocks. Is it…is it too good to be true? 

“’Cain?’” 

“’Yes?’” 

“’Take me home.’” 

“’Yes, m…my f..friend.’” 

_“OH COME ON JUST KISS”_

_“SHHHH YOU’LL RUIN THE ENNUI”_

_“WHAT DOES THAT EVEN MEAN”_

_“IT MEANS SHUT UP IS WHAT IT MEANS”_

_“WHAT IS AIR?”_

_“SHUT UP CONNIE OH MY FUCK”_

Eden looked crushed. His shoulders drooped and he sniffed. How he wanted this man in front of him, even…even if it wouldn’t, _couldn’t_ last. Cain was an accursed one. Eden was… _is_ a holy man. An elf of the cloth. Entirely devoted. Sure.

Cain’s clawed hands come up to his face once more and his long, pale eyelashes brush against clammy skin. 

‘Cain?’

‘Yes Eden?’ 

The high elf sighed. 

‘Just kiss me.’ 

His triton jailbird’s eyes widened, revealing his open face full of shock. That was one of the things that drew the two together, after all. Cain always held his thoughts and feelings on the surface. Eden never had to worry about his lover lying. 

Not that they had ever breathed a word about their individual crushes. 

And now that Able had given Eden the item of his affections…well, he couldn’t let that one go. Not now. Not here. Not after being so long out of the sun of his god and his lands. 

“OH COME ON.” Connie yelled, slamming his hands onto the tabletop. Eren groaned and Sasha had to start rocking back and forth as tears of mirth stained the sides of her face. 

Jean and Marco had kissed. The sides of one another’s hands. 

Somehow it had occurred to them simultaneously and they clapped hands against the other’s lips, eyelids fluttering closed as they pretended to meet lips. 

If Marco pressed his lips against Jean’s hand more than Jean’s did his, neither said anything. 

“Well shit, after that I’m not sure we have a game anymore.” 

“OH COME ON!” Eren yelled, motioning to the board. “We _just_ got our cleric back, we need to bust out of here before I explode!” 

Armin chuckled at Eren’s reply to his stunned admission. “Okay, we bust out and then break. Sound good?” Shrugs and nods answered as everybody got back into their chairs and went back to gnoshing on snacks. 

“You bring him back?” Armin checks.

“Oh yeah, definitely.” Jean agrees, settling into the closest chair because fuck walking all the way back around the table. It’s basically one am and he just spent time on the floor of what used to be a coal cellar. He’s too young for the things his knees are complaining about.

“Okay cool.” Armin shuffles his papers and guides them through breaking free of an area that they later label ‘kinda like that one water room in amnesia. But gayer. And with bugbears’. 

If Jean and his roommate’s knees rest close enough to one another’s to brush, neither of them say anything. 

They are so going to regret staying up this late come morning classes. 

Especially since they know they’ll probably stay up even later talking. 

They have stuff to talk about tonight. 

Jean sneaks a smile to his friend that is answered in kind by warm brown eyes and soft lips. 

It definitely won’t be a bad talk. 

 

…Jean’s just going to have to figure out a way to tell people how he got together with his boyfriend that doesn’t involve role-playing elves in a basement while five people watched.

**Author's Note:**

> This entire damn thing is just so 'me'. I keep laughing I swear. 
> 
> That being said I needed to write more media where Marco is allowed to be the asshole best friend bc come on. Teenage boys.


End file.
